COMMON FIELDS IN NEW ENGLAND.
A certain amount of light upon the question when the common field
system lost its vitality, its advantages being completely overshadowed
by its disadvantages, so that only the obstructive forces which we
have considered prevented its disappearance, is furnished by the fact
that the original settlers of New England, who presumably derived
their ideas of agriculture from the eastern counties of England,
reproduced in America a form of the English village community. No
doubt their poverty and early difficulties compelled them to revert
to a further degree of dependence on mutual help, and so perhaps the
form of community which they there established may have been of a more
primitive type than that which they had left behind, and allowance must
be made for this possibility; and also for the possibility of effects
of the sojourn of the Pilgrim Fathers in Holland.
The following accounts of the New England common fields are taken from
two papers by Mr. Herbert B. Adams:--
“Vestiges of the old Germanic system of common fields are to be found
in almost every ancient town in New England. In the town of Plymouth
there are to this day some 200 acres of Commons known as Town Lands.
This tract is largely forest, where villagers sometimes help themselves
to wood in good old Teutonic fashion.... In the old town of Sandwich,
near Cape Cod, at the point where the ship canal was projected in 1880,
there is a little parcel of 130 acres known as the Town Neck. This is
owned by a company of twenty-four proprietors, the descendants and
heirs of the first settlers in the town, and this tract is managed to
this day as a common field. Originally the Town Neck with other common
lands belonged to the whole town. In the MS. town records of Sandwich
I find under date May 22, 1658, this vote: ‘If any inhabytant wanteth
land to plant, hee may have some in the Towne Neck, or in the Common
for six yeare and noe longer.’ Later, in 1678, April 6, townsmen are
given liberty to improve Neck lands ‘noe longer than ten yeares ...
and then to be at the townsmen’s ordering again.’ In the year 1695,
the use of the Town Neck was restricted to the heirs of the original
proprietors, and the land was staked out into 38 lots. The lots
were not fenced off, and the whole tract continued to lie under the
authority of the entire body of proprietors, like the arable fields of
a German village community. In 1696, April 4, it was agreed that the
Town Neck should be improved for the future by planting and sowing as
a common field, until the major part of those interested should see
cause otherwise to dispose or improve the same. The common fence was
to be made up, and a gate to be provided by the first of May. A field
driver or hayward was to keep the Town Neck clear of creatures and to
impound for trespass. In 1700 it was voted that the Neck be cleared
of creatures by the 16th of April, and that no part of the land be
improved by tillage other than by sowing.
“And thus from the latter half of the 17th century down to the present
day (May 9, 1881) have the proprietors of Sandwich Town Neck regulated
the use of their old common field. Every year they have met together
in the Spring to determine when the fences should be set up and how
the pasture should be stinted. The old Commoners’ records are for the
most part still in existence as far back as the year 1693, and before
this time the town records are full of agrarian legislation, for the
Town Neck was then virtually town property. There arose in Sandwich
and in every New England village community the same strife between
old residents and new comers, as between the Patricians and Plebeians
of ancient Rome. The old settlers claimed a monopoly of public land,
and the new comers demanded a share. In most old New England towns
the heirs of original settlers or of citizens living in the community
at a specified date retained a monopoly of the common lands for many
years until finally compelled by force of public opinion to cede their
claims to the town. In Sandwich, however, a vestige of the old system
has survived to this day. Every Spring, for many years, has appeared a
public notice (I saw one in the _Seaside Press_, May 8, 1880) calling
together the proprietors of the Town Neck at some store in the village
to choose a moderator and a clerk, and to regulate the letting of cow
rights for the ensuing year....
“There were for many years in the town of Salem certain common fields
owned by associated proprietors just as in the case of Sandwich Town
Neck. Such were the north and south fields in Salem. The old Commoners’
records of the south fields are still preserved in the library of
the Essex Institute, and date as far back as 1680. Under the date
of October 14th of that year, I find the following: ‘Voted that the
proprietors have liberty to put in cattle for herbage--that is to say
6 cows, 4 oxen, 3 horses or yearlings, or 24 calves to 10 acres of
land, and so in proportion to greater or less quantities of land; and
no person shall cut or strip their Indian corn stalks after they have
gathered their corn, on penalty of forfeiting herbage.’
“The so-called great pastures of Salem, some 300 acres, are to this day
owned and managed by a small company of proprietors in common, of whom
Dr. Wheatland of the Essex Institute has been for some years the clerk.
He has in his hands the records of the proprietory, extending back for
many years.
“These records are full of old time regulations in regard to common
fencing, common pasturage, cow commons, sheep commons and the like.”
(“The Germanic Origin of New England Towns” p. 33.)
Perhaps still more conclusive are the following decrees of the
legislative body of Massachusetts, which Mr. Adams quotes. In the
spring of 1643 the Massachusetts General Court ordered “For preventing
disorder in corn feilds wᶜʰ are inclosed in common ... that those who
have the greater quantity in such fields shall have power to order the
whole, notwithstanding any former order to the contrary, & that every
one who hath any part in such common feild shall make and maintaine the
fences according to their severall quantities.”
But in the autumn of the same year, the Act was passed:--“Whereas it is
found by experience that there hath bene much trouble and difference
in severall townes about the Manner of planting, sowing, & feeding
of common corne ffeilds & that upon serious consideration wee find
no general order can provide for the best improvement of every such
common feild, by reason that some consists onely of plowing ground,
some haveing a great part fit onely for planting, some of meadowe and
feeding ground; also so that such an order as may be very wholesome &
good for one feild may bee exceeding preiudiciall & inconvenient for
another, it is therefore ordered, that where the commoners cannot agree
about the manner of improvement of their feild, either concerning the
kind of graine that shalbee sowen or set therein, or concerning the
time and manner of feeding the herbage thereof, that then such persons
in the severall townes that are deputed to order the prudenciall
affaires thereof, shall order the same, or in case where no such are,
then the maior portion of the freemen, who are hereby enioyned wᵗʰ what
convenient speed they may to determine any such difference as may arise
upon any information given them by the said commoners; & so much of any
former order as concerns the improvement of common feilds & that is
hearby provided for, is hearby repealed.” (“Village Communities of Cape
Ann and Salem.”)